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27.09.2024 17:36

Conference: Thinking Beyond the ‘Soviet Jewry’ Narrative

Antje Coburger M.A. Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung

    Localism, Diversity, and Subjective Experiences of Jews in the Soviet Republics under Late Socialism

    9–10 October 2024
    Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association, Gisonenweg 5–7, 35037 Marburg, Germany

    The discursive construct of “Soviet Jewry,” defined as a homogeneous unit, was shaped to a significant extent by the Soviet regime’s centralistic features, including its nationalities policies. The concept of a “Soviet Jewry” was also widely adopted in the West during the Cold War era. It persisted as a trope in scholarship and public discourse, both in East and West, as long as the Soviet Union existed, and it continues to retain retrospective currency even today. Yet, seen subjectively from within the Jewish perspective, the Soviet environment was diverse and heterogeneous, and so were the experiences of Soviet Jews. Other populations, residing in the various (sometimes remote) parts of the Soviet state, similarly experienced life under the Soviet regime in ways fundamentally distinct from the dominant, “central,” Soviet normativity.

    The spectrum of Jewish behaviors and experiences, spanning the broad middle ground between conformity to Soviet norms and values, at one end, and the heroic struggle for emigration, at the other end, has yet to receive serious attention. Thinking beyond the familiar narratives of assimilation, state oppression, and radical dissent, we aim to spotlight and examine the ethnic, cultural, and social diversity of Soviet Jews. We also seek to redirect our attention from the center to the Jewish communities at the Soviet “periphery,” in the so-called Soviet “national republics”. The continuity of Jewish traditions, whether of pre-Soviet origin or having arisen in the wake of Sovietization, was palpable in many places outside Moscow and Leningrad – including Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova, as well as the Baltic, Caucasus, and Central Asian republics. Scholars have, for instance, pointed to the persistence of the Yiddish-speaking culture. Paramount also, was the vivid (whether explicit or tacit) memory of the Holocaust, associated exactly with these places.

    We are interested in exploring the porous borders of Soviet (non)Jewishness, and the character and intensity of Jewish-non-Jewish encounters in the Soviet peripheries. Soviet Jews, who were simultaneous ‘insiders and outsiders’, were an integral part of Soviet society that, on the one hand, contributed to its construction and development and, on the other, as some scholars suggest, helped to expedite its unanticipated dissolution. This pericentral and decentralized gaze should facilitate the illumination of oft-overlooked themes and methodological issues in Jewish and Soviet history: everyday living and its effect on the identity of Soviet Jewry; Jewish subjectivity as it evolved under the severe objectivization imposed by the regime; social contacts and networks; gender and age; relationships with others, at the group-level and the micro level; and the convergence as well as divergence of Jewish narratives with the (late)Soviet national narratives. Shifting the focal paradigm by foregrounding multiple local Jewish experiences is also intended to highlight center-periphery relations as they were established in Soviet, East European and Jewish Studies.

    Program

    Wednesday, October 9, 2024
    10:00-10:30 Conference opening. Welcome words of the Director of the Herder Institute Peter Haslinger and the organizers
    10:30-13:45 Panel I. Negotiating Soviet Jewish Identity: Diversity & Localism
    10:30-11:45 Part A. Moderation: Thomas Bohn, University of Giessen
    Navigating ‘Jewishness’ After Stalinism: Soviet Dimensions of Polish Jewish Identity During the Second Repatriation, 1956-60
    Frankee Lyons, University of Illinois Chicago/ Dubnow Institut Leipzig
    Jews in the post-WWII Lithuania: Modernization Without Total Sovietization
    Samuel Barnai, Hebrew University, Jerusalem/ Ben-Gurion University, Negev
    From Ukrainization to Russification: Vectors of Jewish Acculturation in the Ukrainian SSR
    Tobias Wals, LMU München

    12:00-13:15 Part B. Moderation: Tatsiana Astrouskaya, Herder Institute, Marburg
    Soviet Identities and Traditional Modernity: Bukhara. Georgia and Kavkaz Jews. A comparative analysis
    Chen Bram, Hadassah Academic College, and Hebrew University
    Religious, National, Cultural or Soviet? Transforming Frameworks of Jewish Identity in Late Soviet Central Asia
    Zeev Levin, Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem
    Mountain Jews and Local Holocaust Memory: A Case Study of the North Caucasus during Late Socialism
    Mateusz Majman, Bar-Ilan University/Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem

    13:15-14:15 Lunch
    14:15-14:45 “The Story of Mulka Joffe” J-Doc Exhibition Opening
    14:45-17:00 Panel II. Jewish Culture and Jewish & Non-Jewish Encounters
    14:45-16:00 Part A: Moderation: Juliane Fürst, The Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam
    Aleksandr Lizen and his effort for Yiddish culture in Late Socialism
    Jakob Stuermann, Dubnow-Institut, Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture
    Vilnius, Year Zero: The Collapse Discourse in Grigorii Kanovich’s „The Jewish Park“
    Rafi Tsirkin-Sadan, The Open University of Israel
    Michael Zand at the Tajik Academy of Sciences: Literary Translation and the Contours of Jewish Intellectual Life in Soviet Dushanbe
    Benjamin Arenstein, University of Chicago
    16:10-17:00 Part B: Moderation: Dina Fainberg, City University of London
    Utesov (i), (ii), (iii): Evolution of Jewish Soviet Celebrity Self-representations during Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev Eras
    Viktor Osminin, Heidelberg University
    Jews and Jazz. How and Why Jews Played a Key Role in Soviet Jazz Movement.
    Alexander Kan, Independent Scholar, London

    17:30 – 18:30 Keynote: Soviet and also Jewish: Jewishness as Secondary and Tertiary Identities
    Juliane Fürst
    Moderation: Tatsiana Astrouskaya

    Thursday, October 10, 2024

    09:45-11:25 Panel III. Beyond the Narrative of Resistance
    Moderation: Alex Valdman, Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center at Tel Aviv University and the Kaye Academic College of Education
    Jewish Life and Resistance in Late Soviet Ukrainian Borderlands: Local Dimension
    Julia Elena Grieder, University of Basel
    Anatolij Rubin’s “Stranicy perežitogo” (1977): the Construction of a Proper Zionist Autobiography
    Uladzimir Valodzin, ELTE Budapest; CEU Budapest
    The Cold War’s Invisible Migrants: How Soviet Jews Negotiated Soviet Citizenship, 1960-1990
    Irina Nicorici, New Europe College, Bucharest
    Soviet Security Agencies Against Jews in Chernivtsi: Policies, Facts, Narratives
    Aleksandr Ivanov, Independent Scholar, Dortmund

    11:45-13:00 Panel IV. The Variety of Jewish Experiences & Everyday Life
    Moderation: Semion Goldin, Leonid Nevzlin Research Centre, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
    The Congress of Jewish Organizations and Communities of the USSR and the Idea of „Soviet Jewry“
    Joshua Tapper, Stanford University
    Auntie Fira’s Letter: How Material Culture Taught Soviet Jews about Israel
    Dina Fainberg, City University of London
    Jewish Supply Agents in the Era of “Developed Socialism”: Information Experts, Entrepreneurs, Tricksters (The Case of Soviet Moldova)
    Anna Kushkova, Hebrew University Jerusalem (ZOOM)

    14:00-15:40 Panel V. Cross-Border Movements, Emigration & Immigration
    Moderation: Jannis Panagiotidis, RECET, Vienna
    Provincial Encounters: Israeli Visitors, Soviet Jews, and the Conceptualization of the Soviet-Jewish Experience
    Alex Valdman, Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center at Tel Aviv University and the Kaye Academic College of Education
    Litvak Battle Behind the Iron Curtain: Jewish Travel to Soviet Union and their Human Rights Campaigns, 1966-1982
    Odeta Rudling, Lund University
    Between Prejudice(s) and Shared Experiences. The Interethnic Relationship Between Post-Soviet Jews and post-Soviet Germans in the Federal Republic of Germany from the 1990s until Today
    Alexander Schneidmesser, RECET, Vienna
    Multiple Perceptions and Ascriptions of Identities: Jewish (Post) Soviet-Georgian migrants in Germany
    Nino Aivazishvili-Gehne, Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European studies (IOS), Regensburg

    15:40- 16:10 Coffee & Concluding Remarks: Jannis Panagiotidis, Tatsiana Astrouskaya and Semion Goldin

    ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITTEE
    Tatsiana Astrouskaya (HI, Marburg), Thomas Bohn (JLU Giessen), Juliane Fürst (ZZF, Potsdam), Semion Goldin (Hebrew University Jerusalem), Heidi Hein-Kircher (HI, Marburg), Jannis Panagiotidis (RECET, Vienna), Jakob Stürmann (Dubnow Institute, Leipzig)
    ORGANIZERS
    Tatsiana Astrouskaya, Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, tatsiana.astrouskaya@herder-institut.de
    Semion Goldin, Hebrew University Jerusalem, semyon.goldin@mail.huji.ac.il


    Wissenschaftliche Ansprechpartner:

    Tatsiana Astrouskaya, Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, tatsiana.astrouskaya@herder-institut.de


    Originalpublikation:

    https://www.herder-institut.de/en/event/conference-thinking-beyond-the-soviet-je...


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